Today's poem is by Cortney Lamar Charleston

It's Important I Remember That Being Alone and Being Lonely Aren't the Same Thing—
       

a distinction I know well from unwellness.
And, also, that the only thing lowlier than me
in measure of loneliness is an empty chair—

I linger on the image when President Biden,
again, alludes to the multitudes missing
from their kitchen tables in his public address.

The illness that took them I'd taken in already,
months ago; it didn't take me out, thankfully, though
there are faces I'll never forget matched to names
having no reason, now, to be said. I stand up and walk

away from the screen, turning back briefly to find an
impression of me calcified on the couch cushion, dented
from hundreds and hundreds of days mass death made heavier.

Without ever looking in an honest mirror, I could tell you
my lethargy isn't aesthetically pleasing. My gorgeous
wife researches online as to where we can purchase
replacement foam to fill in the damage idleness has done,
and I reflect on how much I appreciate a smooth surface,
like her nourished skin resting against my own.

The times I've been a wrinkle in a plan are hard to say
and easy to count, but that's something I refuse to do
since my mind is too formidable with tabulation:

                        the weeks it's been since I've seen you;
        the months it's been since we've spoken;
                        the years it's been since anything
        other than the end of something dear.

I glance at the woman beside me who hasn't wavered,
who stays where I can reach out and confirm her,
but when I tried the other day, in the widening gap
between night and morning, my hand
fell through hers without a flinch of notice—

and I felt not unlike an apparition, but more like
the atmosphere in this era of empirical misery:
weighty, yet unable to precipitate a form of water.

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Copyright © 2024 Cortney Lamar Charleston All rights reserved
from Shō Poetry Journal
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission